Tattoos are the emblems of our age. They bristle from the biceps of men in summer shirts, from the lower backs of women as they ascend stairs, from the shoulders of basketball players as they drive toward the basket, and from every inch of certain celebrities. The tattoo is the battle flag of today in its war with tomorrow. It is carried by sure losers.

About 40 percent of younger Americans (26 to 40) have tattoos. About 100 percent of these have clothes they once loved but now hate. How can anyone who knows how fickle fashion is, how times change, how their own tastes have “improved,” decorate their body in a way that’s nearly permanent? I don’t get it.

See, you would think from that lede that the whole column was just a rant about how tattoos suck, but if you keep reading … it’s just a rant about how tattoos suck. In the Washington Post. For some reason.

Johnny Depp once had “Winona Forever” tattooed on his shoulder but changed it to “Wino Forever” when his relationship with Winona Ryder turned out to last somewhat short of “forever.” Angelina Jolie once sported the name “Billy Bob,” for Billy Bob Thornton, but, since she began a relationship with Brad Pitt, has had it replaced with the global coordinates of her children’s birthplaces. She is also emblazoned with the legend “Know Your Rights.” The British writer Simon Mills likens that to a sign hung in small-claims court.

David Beckham has turned his body into a billboard of Hebrew, Chinese and Hindi characters, not to mention a semi-nude representation of his wife. Victoria Beckham, the aforementioned semi-nude, is graffitied with Roman numerals and Hebrew lettering. As for the conspicuously tattooed Amy Winehouse, her lyrics bespeak an intelligence that someday — if she has a someday — will cause her to wonder why she never gave that day a thought.

The amazing thing is that somebody - probably not Cohen himself, but some poor schmuck WaPo intern - had to actually research celebrity tattoos. For a Washington Post column. But what’s even more incredible is that we’re probably seeing more care and diligence in digging up the facts on this topic when we’ve ever seen from Cohen on less explosive subjects - Iraq, for example.

WTF, Richard Cohen?

Yep, that’s right. For the purposes of this blog post, I am electing myself official spokesperson for young people. What qualifies me for the job? Absolutely nothing, except that I happen to be young myself. Tom Brokaw, on the other hand, is not young, and is therefore less qualified. So, for the record, Ned: 1, Tom Brokaw: 0. Nonetheless, Brokaw is the latest in a series of well-intentioned but befuddled media figures to wring their hands over what’s making the kids cynical.

The answer, of course, according to Brokaw, is Al Gore. Why? Because he said this:
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Here’s a tip from the folks at the Republican Party, who have been doing this whole “corporate sellout” thing a lot longer and are a hell of a lot better at it: When accepting corporate sponsors who happen to have lobbied for reprehensible legislation which you in turn supported, sometime it’s a good idea to exert the smallest amount of restraint and not plaster their logo on your shit.

Come on, guys. There’s a reason why even President Bush manages to stop just short of delivering his speeches in a KBR baseball cap.

“We’re fucked.”

-An anonymous but prominent Republican strategist speaking about the whole Maliki can of worms.

Unfortunately for them, it looks like a hostile force invaded their press release and destroyed anything resembling coherency or honesty.

“His domestic politics require him to be for us getting out,” said a senior McCain campaign official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The military says ‘conditions based’ and Maliki said ‘conditions based’ yesterday in the joint statement with Bush. Regardless, voters care about [the] military, not about Iraqi leaders.”

So McCain seems to be saying that if the US military’s top brass supports a continuing troop presence in Iraq, then a President McCain would support that even if the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people both want us out.

Now think about that for a second. Because a military occupation of a country that doesn’t want it, is by definition an invasion - and this would effectively, therefore, be an invasion of Iraq and the government we installed there after originally invading it. Doesn’t that strike anyone else as ridiculously alarming?

The good news is that, as Matt puts it, “it’s just a no brainer that if the Iraqi government doesn’t want us to stay we have to leave. McCain even said so himself before conceding the point became damaging to his campaign.” So I don’t think a McCain presidency would actually do this - he’s just trying to spin this thing as hard as he can, even if he ends up with a position that’s just flat-out lunacy.

I wonder if the Speaker watched yesterday’s Harold Ford event. If I were her and I saw it, I would be tranqed up to the eyeballs for this thing today. A lot of the questions are going to be along the lines of: “Why hasn’t your Congress been able to do anything about Iraq?” “FISA: WTF?” “Why did you take impeachment off the table?” and most of all: “Why has the House you preside over become an embarrassment to the very idea of a legislative branch?”

So yeah. I would pack some codeine or something. Liveblogging below the fold.

(By the way: Once again, my Netroots Nation roommate Sahar is liveblogging over at his own place. So go check that out.)

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